If America Were a Village, by David J. Smith. Hardcover Book.

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America, with all its diversity, is not easily defined. David J. Smith's If America Were a Village takes a snapshot - past, present and future - to help define America for children.

Using the same successful metaphor of the international bestseller If the World Were a Village, the book shrinks down America to a village of 100. The metaphor helps children easily understand American ethnic origins, religions, family profiles, occupations, wealth, belongings and more.

Imagining Amerca's 306 Million plus as a village of 100 people. Highly educational, well illustrated, eye opening.

Shelagh Armstrong's expansive illustrations imagine America as a classic, vibrant small town. Who are the people living in this vast and varied nation? Where did they come from? What are they like today? How do they compare with people in other countries?

The book's simple statistical analysis provides a new way of learning about where people live in America, the state of their health, the shapes and sizes of families, what they use and more - forming a concise picture of a country.

By imagining America to be a village of 100 people and then providing answers to a series of questions about the make-up of those 100 villagers, David J. Smith offers readers the invaluable opportunity to look beyond the ends of their noses and their own neighborhoods in order to get a broader and more objective view of the three-hundred-and-six-plus million people ("1 birth about every 8 seconds and one death every 12 seconds") who collectively make up these United States of America.

The questions addressed in the book include:
"Where do we come from?"
"What religions do we practice?"
"How old are we?"
"How wealthy are we?"
"How healthy are we?"
"A new immigrant arrives every 27 seconds," and "In our village of 100 about 13 are foreign-born."

As an educator himself, David Smith also includes about a dozen very practical suggestions for teachers and parents "to support our children in unraveling this complex, multi-faceted" country. I'm going to make sure the children in my own world have access to this book as a tool for expanding their own international horizons by first understanding their own country. I can imagine that students in schools all over America will soon be doing worthwhile research projects with titles like "If Tulsa Were a Village." Or Wyoming. Or any community in the world.